I 



614 Correspondence. 



Note. — We received the above too late for insertion in our October number, 

 and conceiving the occasion on which the expression complained of occurred, to be 

 one on which a slight inadvertence might be excused, we thought it our duty before 

 publishing the explanation, to refer to Dr. Wight. Allowing the removal of all 

 the East Indian Herbaria from the country in 1827 to have been an oversight, as 

 Dr. Wight regards it to have been, what steps, have since been taken to rectify it ? 



The effect of the distribution was to take away from India the means of identify- 

 ing plants in the country, and to confer them on Paris, London, Berlin, Geneva, 

 Bale, Munich, Halle and other places. Thus leaving the Indian Botanist without 

 any clue whatever as to the plants distributed, and rendering him incapable of des- 

 cribing his own collections until he can first visit Europe. Whatever benefit the 

 distribution, may therefore have conferred on Indian Botany in the light in which 

 it is viewed by Dr. Wight, it has tied the hands of the Botanist in India. 



On this point we are furnished with the fullest details by the lamented Mr. 

 Griffith, which enables us to write with the most perfect confidence. 



In 1830 Dr. Wallich wrote thus : " Besides the homage which has been paid 

 to the Company in many publications for their princely liberality in thus affording 

 these ample means for the diffusion of a knowledge of the Botany of the East la- 

 dies, a still more effectual method of testifying a sense of the general obligation 

 they have conferred upon the scientific world, has been adopted by a number of 

 celebrated Botanists, who have undertaken to publish monographs of the more ex- 

 tensive and interesting families, thereby powerfully contributing to the completion 

 of a scheme so truly worthy of the British East India Company. It is a source of 

 pride for me to introduce here, the names and separate labours of those who have 

 thus zealously come forward to advance the interests of science." 



In the Bot. Reg. v. for 1828, v. 14 t. 1203, in an account of Conocephalus 

 naucleiflorous, this remark in reference to the distribution of the collections — "In 

 short, the obligations imposed upon us by these acts of truly oriental munificence 

 are of such a nature, that it has become the bounden duty of all men who have the 

 interest of science and of civilisation at heart, to take every opportunity of express- 

 ing the deep sense which they cannot but feel, of measures which so redound to 

 the honour and glory of the Company." 



The following is a list of the monographs promised in the PI. As. Rar. A. D. 1830. 

 Those marked ! are entirely due ; those marked -j- have been incorporated in 

 general works ; those printed in Capitals are the only ones that come under the 

 engagements, but unfortunately most, have appeared in huge and inaccessible 

 works.* 



Mr. Arnott.— Hanunculaceae ! Nymphaeaceae ! Papaveraceze ! Droseraceae ! 



Acerineae ! Tamariscineae ! 

 Mr. Bentham.— Caryophylleae ! Labiate, Lineae ! Melastomaceae ! Memecyleae 



Alangieas ! Onagrarieae ! Salicarieae ! ScrophulahinK/E, Orobanchece+, 



Cyrlandraceae ! Myriceae ! 

 Profr. Besser of Crzmieniec. — Artemisia ! 

 Mr. Adolphe Brongniart of Paris.— Celastrineee ! Hhamneaa ! 

 Mr. Brown.— Anonaceae ! Capparideae I Rubiaceee ! Gramineae ! Sonerila I 

 M. Cambesedes of Paris.— Hippocratiaceae ! Sapindacese ! Ternstroemiaceae.-}- 



* The three families without marks may probably have appeared in the 8th vol, of the 

 Prodromus. 



